Finding Minnesota: The Fit Tourist

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – From Shriners to baseball fans, we’re seeing a lot of tourists in downtown Minneapolis this summer.

They can get around quickly with taxis, light rail and shuttles.

But for those who want a closer, more personal look at the city, there’s Stephanie Croteau and her company, The Fit Tourist, offering biking and walking tours of the city.

Croteau was raised in Connecticut, but she may know more about Minneapolis than most natives.

“I really want to be a good ambassador to the city,” she said.

She’s a long-time pediatric nurse who retired here after 25 years of caring for sick children.

“I just find history fascinating, and I have read a lot. I’ve visited a lot of the museums,” she said. “I’m always studying and when I see something, I question a lot. So I always go and investigate what it’s all about,” she said.

Her tours are part exercise, part history lesson – visiting key spots such as the Mill District, downtown and the Walker Sculpture Garden. And many of those who sign up are Minnesotans.

“We get to show them areas that even though they’ve been here their whole life, they’ve never been to,” she said. “Or they learn something about their city that they never knew.”

She hopes to inspire visitors to ask more questions about the city and learn how it grew to be the state’s largest.

“I feel like it’s a really intimate tour because you really get close up to things that you wouldn’t see if you were inside a vehicle,” she said.